Yeah, I read them and the arrogance pretty much dowses my flame. When it's all said and done I'll still be a photographer, proud of my work and willing to lend a hand or offer some encouragement to anyone who wants it. I don't need to stick my neck out to do it. Vaya con dios.

I am well aquainted with a photographer who posts on another forum. He uses a website that does a search for his metedata - I forget the site name. He found that someone had pirated one of his images and was using it on their website. He contacted them via email and they promptly removed the image. Had it not been for a regular search of the internet he would probably never have known.
Copyrighting is something we should be doing if were serious about our work but I have to admit that I haven't done it through the US Copyright Office as it should be.

I think you're right about image size, gessman. I think the the site probably has a binding right to use the images through implied consent [I'm not a lawyer], however, the counter to that might well be to make the images unuseable. A small, low resulution image is much less useable. The other thing is a watermark. Although I hate to look at watermarked images, they provide an element of security that's hard to breach. Furthermore, they can be done automatically and at a level that's not too obtrusive. My images always have the metadata attached if I'm working in Lightroom, not that metadata alone is any assurance that this site owner wouldn't try to sell or use an image but it might prohibit a buyer from wanting to go there.

I'm very disappointed. I was thrilled to find this site. The people are great - I haven't found a prima donna in the bunch - and I appreciate the feedback and advice I've received. I assume the best out of everyone and I came into this without thinking about any pitfalls. I even know better. I hope this has a positive ending.

Thanks gessman for bringing this up. I wondered why there weren't more pictures posted. While I, too was negligent, I still feel like I've been had. No more from me. I'll go back to tmelive.com and suggest you do the same.

What are you using to resize your pic? There's a difference between resizing the image dimensions and image resolution. But it would help to know what you're using.

Congrats on your new toys. Set the round dial to "P" and start taking pictures. Just make it a goal that after some point you're going to forget that setting even exists. Take all this other good advice that you've been given and you'll be on your way. Just remember that with nearly everything photographic the more you experiment the more you are going to learn.

All you're really concerned with her is being able to slow your shutter to 1/4 sec or slower. I take a LOT of flowing water pictures and 1/4 is kind of my benchmark for blurring the water. That said, you might not need your ND filters. In fact, I've found them to be a hindrance if overused. Set your camera to manual, your shutter to 1/4 sec or slower, set your f/stop accordingly. Now check your depth of field preview and see if you're getting enough DOF. If not, reset your f/stop to get the right DOF and then reset your shutter - it will still be slower than 1/4 sec. If this fails, then use your ND filters but use only
what you need. Hope this helps.

[quote=fivedawgz]

Not all color profiles reproduce well when you send your images out to the Web. Generally speaking sRGB will look most like what you see on your monitor. The other thing that I will no longer do without is a calibrated monitor. I use the Spyder3 Elite from Datacolor and really like it, but there are others. ColorMunki is very popular.

This is HDR and admittedly a little overdone for how I would usually do it. I liked it this way so I quit where I was. Nothing wrong with branching out, right?

No, I'm not a pro. Don't make my living with photography and even if I did, I would feel a little pretentious calling myself a professional. I wouldn't want to dilute the pool of photographers whom I consider professionals. Thx.

Thanks for the nice feedback. I'm embarassed to tell you what I'm using - it's a hand-held Canon Xsi with a 100mm Tokina macro lens. The really expensive stuff, I know. No tripod, no stack, just elbows in the dirt.

I use everything I can get my hands on since I lost about 15,000 images once upon a time.

Today I'm using a Fantom Drives DataDock II, Raid 1, 1tb external drive; Carbonite, DVDs just in case, and an HP Simple Save 500gb external drive for field work.

Terrific detail in this old bird. Nicely done.

There are arms hanging on your house? Never mind, I don't want to know.

If you're using CS5, I recommend the Healing Brush with the Content Aware checked. I'm in love with this feature.

If you're using an earlier version, try taking your Marquee Tool and making a selection somwhere in the photo to use as a patch. You might need to do this a couple or more times. Now hit CTRL > J and put it in it's own layer. Hit CTRL > T for the free transform tool and move your patch to cover the errant arms or hose. Hit enter. Flatten your layers and go to work on the inlaws.

I love you composition in these, you definitely have an eye for it.

We all see colors and light differently and to my eyes these could use a little adjustment to make them all they could and should be. I would like to play with them a little, but only with your permission, of course.